7.22.23

Four Storm players score in double-figures led by Magbegor’s 14

SEATTLE – On a night when the Seattle Storm finally had some shots falling their way, the rebounds definitely were not.

Ezi Magbegor scored 14 points, and Jewell Loyd finished with 12, but the Chicago Sky got a career-high tying 29 from Kahleah Copper on the way to beating Seattle on Saturday night in Climate Pledge Arena, 90-75.

Jordan Horston (12) and Sami Whitcomb (11) combined for 23 points off the bench for the Storm (4-18), who came up short for the ninth straight time.

The Sky (9-13) never trailed on the way to snapping a four-game losing streak. Except for a 2-2 tie, they led from start to finish.

The Storm had one of their better shooting nights of the season, hitting 46.7 percent (28 of 60). Magbegor buried 6-of-10, Horston hit 4-of-6, and Whitcomb was 4-of-5. Chicago finished at 42 percent (29 of 69), including five more makes from 3-point range.

But led by a career-high 17 rebounds from Alana Smith (14 in the first half), the Sky dominated the boards, 44-24, keeping Seattle to a season-low. That included 32-10 during the first half, with 15 at the offensive end.

“A lot of times, rebounding isn’t a skillset. It’s a desire to box out,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. “Our mindset around that wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t only one of us, it was all of us.”

Of those 15, first-half offensive boards, five came on one possession early in the game, finally leading to an Elizabeth Williams putback. Quinn immediately called a timeout, just 2 minutes and 10 seconds into the game.

“The desire and the heart that it takes to go finish a play … that desire was not strong today, hence the early timeout to address it,” Quinn said. “There wasn’t really a change after that. You’re not going to win games if you’re not going to play at a high level every single night.”

For the game, Chicago had 18 offensive rebounds, leading to 12 points. Seattle had just four, netting two points.

The Sky led by as many as 23 during the first half, 49-26, before Whitcomb buried back-to-back 3-pointers in a span of 15 seconds to get the Storm within 49-32 at the break.

Seattle got it down to a single-digit deficit at 63-54 with 59.8 seconds left in the third quarter, thanks to a 22-14 scoring run.

“We’ve proven this season that we can get ourselves back into games, but we don’t want that to be the case every game,” Magbegor said. “The first half, their offensive rebounds definitely extended that lead.”

Chicago then got the final basket of the third quarter to make it 65-54, and then tallied the first six points of the fourth period to stretch it back out to 17 at 71-54.

Marina Mabrey added 22 points for the Sky.

Chicago is the last team that Seattle had not yet played this season They’ll meet three more times in next 36 days.